Make your own greeting cards: pop-up cards and dried foliage cards

Over 6 billion greeting cards are sold annually in the US alone! It is definitely an industry raking in the billions every year, although recent studies show that there has been a sharp decline in greeting card purchases. This is attributed to online gifting and wishing each other on various occasions on Facebook, Twitter or just plain email. Though I am all for not letting Hallmark getting any richer, I don't want card giving to be gone away either.

Ever since Big Sister could hold a crayon and scribble random lines, we have made our cards. They were definitely not beautiful cards, with a bunch of scribbles in the front, middle and back, and  some random stickers strewn about. Then I would trace a flower or some favorite shape and ask her to color it in. In the end, each card we gave was personalized. We would spend more time making it lovingly than we would at the store choosing someone else's words.

Here are a few cards we made recently, I thought were worth sharing...

Even as a kid, I used to love pop-up cards. And Big Sister had so much fun choosing the various pop-up elements and helping me glue the cards together and eventually decorating them with her scribbles. Want to make a pop-up card? Read on for my step-by-step...

Start by cutting up a plain white or colored poster board/chart paper.

Depending on the size of your card, you might be able to make 9-10 cards from each poster.

This step-by-step is for making a simple pop-up card. We wanted to make a heart garden card for Dad Dearest.

The 3-d is achieved by making slits of various lengths for each pop-up element.

Ready to make one?
Grab 2 cards of the same size.

At the fold of one card, make 2 slits for each element. Make sure the length of the slit does not cross the halfway point. Otherwise the pop-up slit will peep out of the card when folded.

Open the card and fold each of the slits the other way.

This is how the card will look when folded.

For our card, I cut out a few heart shapes and Big Sister colored them in. You may also use stickers or print outs like in the other cards below.

Now glue the cut-out to one face of the slit.

Grab the other card now and glue it to this one.

This should be your finished product.

See how neatly the elements folds in?

If you are using larger elements like Cinderella below, you need to make sure it does not peep out of the card when it is folded. Before you make the slits, place the element on the outside of the card to determine the maximum height it can reach when folded. Now mark the length of the slits from the bottom of the element.

Notice, Cinderella does not reach all the way to the top when popped-up. But when you fold the card, her bun barely touches the edges.

For this card, we glued stickers to card-stock and cut out around the sticker.

Also, as each card was cut manually, there might be some imperfections, especially after you glue the cards together.  You can easily fix this with a ruler and a precision knife.

A similar Hello Kitty pop-up using stickers and card-stock.

You may also print out your favorite characters or shapes on plain or photo paper and glue it onto card-stock.

That's it for pop-up cards. 

Here's a bonus idea for making your own cards. Flatten flowers or petals or leaves between the pages of a heavy book. We have a collection of these from various occasions, stored between the pages of a big fat book. Carefully glue them on to the face of your card. 

Now do you get that creative satisfaction form ready-made cards?